Forum: Talking turkey with the troops

Published 7:00 pm, Friday, January 31, 2003

Wirtz: Tell us about back in 1990 when talk first came up about the possibility that the unit might be activated for full-time duty. What was going through your mind, your friends minds and some of your coworkers?

Kaminski: Well, from my mind, I felt good. What I mean by that is weve had all these years of training prior to this. Here, before I left I had 27 years of training for this, and now its happening or it was going to happen at the time. I was just glad that I could be a part of that knowing that I going to be able to do something for my country other than we just go to Grayling, or wherever we go, and you end your career at whatever time not ever getting to go to a war. The closest I came was down to the riots in Detroit in 1967 and then we were back there in 1968 when Martin Luther King got assassinated. Other than that, you know, this is what you train for. To me it was something I had looked forward to. For a lot of them it wasnt. A lot of them never thought wed ever be mobilized. They thought the unit here or the National Guard would stay back in the States and protect the States. The full-time service people were the ones that would go actually in the battle. Not the case. When it did change and I believe, if I remember right, it was back in 1982 when they eliminated the 46th Division and we fell under the First Army and thats when things all changed for the better. We got more training, better training, and like I said I felt good, ready to go.

Wirtz: You werent the only one from your family that had to be concerned about going, I understand.

Kaminski: No I wasnt. I had my son that was here in the unit also and my oldest boy that was in the Navy and he was on the newest nuke sub that they had, the U.S.S. Oklahoma, and the sub always escorts aircraft carriers and he had already a couple different times been to the Persian Gulf. A sub cant go in the gulf because the gulf isnt deep enough for the sub to go in, but they sit outside the gulf. My youngest boy was in the Navy down in Orlando, Fla. Yeah, we had some different things concerned, but all of us were ready.

Wirtz: And thats all three of your sons?

Kaminski: Correct.

Wirtz: What did your wife have to say about this?

Kaminski: Well my wife had her hands full because prior to this, about two years before this took place, they needed to have what they called a family support group. Someone who was going to be able to stay back here and work with the other spouses, help on that end. So seeing I was the first sergeant, we tried to get some volunteers and really we couldnt get any volunteers and the state was really going forward with the family support group so we really needed someone. So I convinced my wife that was going to be her job. At first not too happy about it, but she volunteered in many ways and we went to different meetings throughout the next two years, here in the state of Michigan, in different places, helping all the ones who were going to head family support on how to get organized, what to do, who to call, those kind of things. So after she got into it over a year then she made some contacts with the women here in the unit and they started to support her and she had a real good active bunch. On Sunday afternoons here at the armory prior to us leaving a year before, Id let them have time in one of the rooms and theyd get together and discuss things that needed to be taken care of.

Wirtz: Chuck and I were talking a little bit, before you joined us Mike, about what were the feelings when you first started hearing rumors that this group might be activated back in 1990. Tell us a little bit about what you felt like and the people around you. What were your thoughts then?

Orvis: A lot of it was what were we going to do once we get there? Are we trained well enough to do the job? Which we found out we were.

Wirtz: Did everybody start doing things a little bit differently like making sure you had enough money in the checking because you might go next week, you never knew when you were going to go.

Now Playing:

Kaminski: Yeah, I think everybody took care of that. Making sure the wills were done and our families were all set. Some were, the majority of them were but Im going to say that about 30 percent of them werent prepared and they had some tough times back here. Thats why they had to establish a food pantry to try and help those people out. Dow Chemical also, I made some contacts this was prior to us leaving, and they came and supported my wife with money and quite a bit which she could use to help the people with bills or repairs or whatever they might have. I think that the first check she received from them was